China to raise national minimum wage

By Beth MainThe government has announced plans to raise the national minimum wage to 40% of the average urban salary by 2015, in order to address the growing wealth gap in China.China’s economic boom benefited many and created a burgeoning middle class, but lots of rural communities and immigrant workers were left out of this success. The resulting wealth gap is a source of great tension and dissatisfaction in Chinese society, and the cause of no small amount of pants-wettingamong CPC officials.The government also announced that state owned enterprises will need to feed more of their profits back into the government to fund social security.The BBC reports:

China’s Gini coefficient, which is a gauge of income disparity in a country, rose to 0.474 in 2012, higher than the 0.4 level analysts often cite as a threshold for potential social unrest.